


the birth and death of a mixtape

by heathicorn



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:08:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heathicorn/pseuds/heathicorn





	the birth and death of a mixtape

Danny isn't one for melodramatics but when the door to his apartment slams behind him and he yells about how much he hates missionary work, the fiercely Catholic part of him doesn't even blink because he _genuinely_ means it. In that moment, he really, _really_ hates missionary work and altruistic doctors, and mostly he hates himself for not giving a missionary-loving-suddenly-altruistic-doctor a reason to stay in New York.

He doesn't want to think about how close he came to kissing Mindy—how close he was to tossing her glasses aside and pulling her close until there was no doubt in her mind Haiti was the last place in the world she should be. The only place for her was right there next to him, bickering in the office and sharing meals and riding subways and laughing at nothing in particular together. But instead, he smiled and put on her favorite reality show and pretended nothing happened, like the space between them hadn't shifted somehow in some unseen, immeasurable way.

Deep in the pit of his stomach he knows he lost something in the break room the night Mindy cut her hair. He couldn't admit it to himself, couldn't face the simple fact that he'd been denying an obvious truth to himself for so long. He'd spent so much time telling himself there was nothing between them that when the time came, when he was finally ready to cave and give in to his own feelings, Mindy made the choice for him.

As much as it killed him, he couldn't say goodbye. He refused to go to the airport, made up an excuse about having to go out of town with Christina and apologized profusely over the phone before hanging up abruptly. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that if he had to stand at the gate and wave goodbye to her and Casey he'd probably lose it and cause a scene or some sort of national emergency in the airport to prevent her from leaving.

So instead he got in his car and drove until he was almost on the other side of New Jersey, white-knuckling the steering wheel until his wrists were actually sore. By the time he turned around and got home, it was the middle of the night and he hadn't eaten in what felt like days and ranting about missionary work felt completely reasonable.

He grabs a box of goldfish Mindy left in his apartment a few nights before they delivered the triplets and marches straight to his closet, stuffing handfuls of the orange crackers into his mouth as he tears through boxes in a mindless daze. Wordlessly, he pulls out boxes of CD's and cassette tapes, grabs his laptop and cassette recorder, and drops to the ground with a pile of music around him. As if possessed, he starts ripping CD's from their cases and slams a cassette into the recorder.

When he's done, he's left with a mixtape he plays long into the night, with his messy handwriting scrawled across the label: “DON'T THINK ABOUT MINDY”

Despite the warning, Danny definitely _does_ think about Mindy, and more than he'd ever care to admit.

\---

For a while, the mixtape becomes an odd staple in Danny's day-to-day life, alternating between his car and a beat up boombox in the back corner of his office. He leaves it on so often that it becomes white noise, mere background sound to the cars rushing by outside, horns blaring and city noise. What was intended as a temporary bandage for an open wound somehow became a crutch for loneliness and nostalgia. He listens to Bob Dylan wearily croon about the pitfalls of love and finds himself absently nodding along to the words, agreeing with an unseen man and a heartache he didn't know was his own.

Despite the embarrassing number of times he's listened the to the tape, each time it comes to an end he finds himself startled by the candidness with which Bruce Springsteen asserts “She's the One”--on more than one occasion, Danny's found himself slamming it off abruptly in a fit of embarrassment, remembering the night he made the tape and the subject written across the front. He'll murmur, “yeah, sure Bruce,” as he aggressively scratches out a line on an invoice until he nearly tears through the paper.

It's only when Betsy knocks on his door one day to timidly warn him some of the nurses are getting concerned about the music being on a seemingly infinite loop that Danny plucks the cassette out and tosses it under a pile of paperwork on his desk and determines never to press play again.

Mindy's gone, and listening to songs that remind him of her does nothing but make the hole in his chest feel vast and ever-expanding. He's with Christina, and he's happy, regardless of what Betsy or Jeremy or Morgan or anyone else says when they think he's not listening. And besides—what does Bruce Springsteen know about him anyway.

\---

When Mindy returns to the States Danny has almost entirely forgotten about the mixtape. More importantly, he's almost forgotten about how he might have maybe possibly felt feelings of a romantic nature about Mindy. Living with Christina has pulled him out of his Mindy-less stupor, and things seem relatively back to normal even with Mindy's arrival.

So it definitely comes as a shock to him when he walks into his office one morning to find Mindy shuffling through his papers and drifting dangerously close to a suspiciously familiar looking cassette tape. She starts complaining about the amount of incomplete paperwork on his desk, but before he can reach past her to grab the tape, she's already picking it up and turning it over her hands.

Danny freezes. He can feel his heart thudding in his chest, the panic reddening his face and ears. If he didn't know better—which he should, given his occupational status—he'd have thought he was in the first stages of a heart attack or multiple organ failure. His vision is blurry, his hearing seems to be fading out—Mindy is saying something and holding up the tape, eyes wide and laughter tumbling from her lips. Danny's eyes dart toward the window and he tries to remember just how many stories up they are. He wonders if he could climb out before Mindy could stop him, because jumping to near-certain death is feeling like a pretty good option given the alternative of having to confess his making a personalized mixtape for his Mindy woes.

Just as he begins to say, “Mindy—Mindy I can explain,” he hears her practically shouting, “I mean, who even owns cassette tapes anymore? Honestly I thought they were all in museums at this point, Danny. If I didn't know how averse you are to hipster culture, I'd assume you were doing this to be cool, but you and I both know it's just that you're sort of at t-rex status when it comes to technology.”

A wave of relief washes over him and he can't help but relax into a smile and laugh weakly, because _of course_ Mindy didn't read the label on the mixtape. She was too fired up at the prospect of getting to poke fun at him again that she didn't even think to check just what it was she was mocking. Never before had he been so grateful for her impatience for affectionate jibes. Danny lunges forward and snatches the tape from her, feigning an affronted expression.

“Hey, not all of us are Mark Zuckerman with the itunes and everything! I happen to like the tactile quality of a good mixtape. There's more character to the tape than your chiclet sized microchips, Mindy.”

“...Zuckerberg, Danny. Mark Zuckerberg. And he didn't make itunes? My god how did you survive without me for this long?”

Danny feels a small pang in his chest and he tries not to wonder the same thing.

“What's on that thing anyway? Is it just 2 hours of Bruce Springsteen singing about the dirty streets of Jersey and how badly he wants to roll up his sleeves and change his tires?”

“That's just rude and offensive and you couldn't get 2 hours of music on this tape anyway,” Danny rolls his eyes.

“Let me see it,” she says with a laugh, and when she tries to grab it from him Danny simply reacts without thinking and throws the tape at the wall with surprising force. Mindy jumps, then punches him in the arm, yelling “What the hell!”

Danny just shrugs, pointing at the fragments of plastic and tape on the floor, “This is your fault, making fun of a man's mix. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“God, what's wrong with you!? I don't even know you anymore! I leave for a few months and you start throwing things at walls? That was really unnecessary, Danny!”

He chuckles and collects the remnants of the tape, tossing them into the trash. And as Mindy follows him out of his office and asks him if he needs more attention and demands they go get lunch immediately because maybe his blood sugar is low, Danny can't help but smile and think—maybe Springsteen knows a thing or two about him after all.


End file.
